SocialStartshttp://www.socialstarts.com
SocialStartsThu, 30 Jul 2015 20:02:57 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3We are the Most Active Moment-of-Inception Investor, and That’s a Great Starthttp://www.socialstarts.com/socialstarts/we-are-the-most-active-moment-of-inception-investor-and-thats-a-great-start/
http://www.socialstarts.com/socialstarts/we-are-the-most-active-moment-of-inception-investor-and-thats-a-great-start/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 18:59:33 +0000http://www.socialstarts.com/?p=1121We were gratified by the CB Insights report that showed Social Starts as the most active moment-of-inception VC fund in...

]]>We were gratified by the CB Insights report that showed Social Starts as the most active moment-of-inception VC fund in New York, and second most active in California (right after 500 Startups; you can see the full report here). As CB Insights notes, with many VCs moving back to bigger early-stage rounds, later in the lives of start-ups, the first under-$1M round is becoming a distinct investment category and a unique investment opportunity.

Our singular investment strategy at Social Starts, in part, hinges on being a dominant moment-of-inception investor in our core markets of New York and San Francisco. Overall, New York and California had 95 moment-of-inception deals in 2014; we did 26 of those. In the first half of 2015, New York and California had 33 of these deals and we did 19 of them.

As pleased as we are to see this success emerge, we recognize that volume alone isn’t enough. Our strategy demands three other elements for success.

The first is focus. We aren’t simply putting money into a lot of young companies. Rather, we are focusing 100% on social/mobile start-ups because we believe this is the defining shift for the future of business, commerce and society. Further, within that framework, we focus deeply on five core areas: media, analytics, mobile commerce, new ways to work, and software related to the Internet of Things. These are areas where we have substantial domain expertise, and connections where we see enormous opportunity.

Our goal in these five areas is to achieve unprecedented context to our investment choices. This demands not only focus, but also intense pre-investment research. This is the second additional element our strategy requires. In the first half of this year, for instance, our team discussed 641 companies in our five target areas, drawn from a universe of more than 2,000 teams we identified through a wide range of research approaches. Only by tracking every deal in our areas of focus, and meeting with the best prospects, can we know we are investing in the right entrepreneurs and ideas.

Finally, our strategy demands not just volume, but efficiency of success. We love unicorns as much as the next investor, but from the super-early stage, unicorns are hard to predict. (We didn’t know Coldbrew Labs would become Pinterest, when we were their moment-of-inception investor.) From this vantage, success is defined by progress of companies to the critical gates of the A and B rounds. If our approach is right, we should see more companies making those gates than other investors. If that happens, our potential for unicorns, and other kinds of positive outcomes, soars.

What have we seen so far? Our moment-of-inception funds are young, just in their fourth and first year, respectively. But signs are distinctly positive. Social Starts 1, our original fund, has 81 investments. Of those, 37 have already reached the A round and 21 the B round. And five of those companies already exceed $100M in value. That puts us well ahead of venture market norms. As a comparison, during its first 8 years, Y Combinator moved 24 companies to $50M in value, 4.2% of the 571 companies they worked with. In less than half that time, we have moved 4.7% of our investments past that value.

It’s a great start, and we’re thrilled to be at the top of the list.

Tech startups, get in touch! You can find us on Twitter @SocialStarts, or use the contact form on our homepage.

]]>http://www.socialstarts.com/socialstarts/we-are-the-most-active-moment-of-inception-investor-and-thats-a-great-start/feed/0Account Executive, NYC, NewsWhiphttp://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/account-executive-nyc-newswhip/
http://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/account-executive-nyc-newswhip/#commentsFri, 17 Jul 2015 20:12:59 +0000http://www.socialstarts.com/?p=1114Account Manager, New York 16th July 2015 NewsWhip, the world leader in tracking the social distribution of news and content,...

The Account Manager is a solutions-oriented inside sales role to demonstrate our platform to qualified leads, and to meet with, close, onboard, and service clients at media organizations, brands, agencies and political associations.

The ideal candidate will know SaaS, digital media, content marketing and social. They will take time to understand our customers’ challenges and pain points, and show how NewsWhip can improve their business process and bottom line. With technology and support from our New York and Dublin teams, they will help transform our customers’ workflows and business practices.

The successful candidate will interact with cutting edge leaders in news, marketing and PR worldwide, ranging from large, enterprise companies to small blogs. Our current customers include BuzzFeed, The BBC, The Guardian, MasterCard, Edelman, Digitas, Wells Fargo, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post. Most interactions will be through shared screen, telephone and other communications, and you will also have regular face to face meetings.

If you love news, social media, PR and marketing, and are passionate about providing cutting-edge solutions in those areas, this role could be for you.

You will:

Manage the full sales process from qualified lead to after sales monitoring

Demonstrate our technology, through share screen, telephone, and in person

The right candidates will:

Have at least two years inside sales experience at a SaaS, Marketing, PR, Social, or Content company

Be a top performer, with a track record of outperforming peers by exceeding new business and revenue targets

Be intellectually curious – NewsWhip is building the future, and you’ll have an input

Have experience effectively using and reporting via CRM tools

Thrive in a collaborative startup environment

Have a real interest in news and social media

NewsWhip is a technology company that recognises the importance of our sales team. We will support you vigorously, and do everything we can to empower your work.

We are growing fast and you will have the opportunity to shape product development through your feedback, and progress quickly up our growing ranks.

As we sell our services all over the world from our New York sales hub, any language skills – particularly fluent Spanish – will be a nice bonus.

Benefits: Competitive salary, with a strong base and no cap on what you can earn if you make the sales. Your OTE (On Target Earnings) will be 50% base and 50% commission. We expect you to make or greatly exceed your targets as our team has done to date.

Our generous ESOP may be made available after six months, depending on your performance. Health plan will be provided, as well as other benefits.

Interested? We’d love to explore a possible match. Please email (i) your resume and (ii) a summary of why you want this job and why you would be great at it to: salesjobs@newswhip.com

]]>http://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/account-executive-nyc-newswhip/feed/0Business Development Representative, NYC, NewsWhiphttp://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/business-development-representative-nyc-newswhip/
http://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/business-development-representative-nyc-newswhip/#commentsFri, 17 Jul 2015 20:12:29 +0000http://www.socialstarts.com/?p=1112Business Development Representative (BDR), New York 16th July 2015 NewsWhip, the world leader in tracking the social distribution of news...

NewsWhip, the world leader in tracking the social distribution of news and content, is seeking a Business Development Representative (B/D Rep) to develop its existing and new customer relations from our new office in New York.

The Business Development Rep is the first point of contact for inbound and outbound sales activities, qualifying our inbound leads and reaching out to carefully selected prospects.

These include media organizations (TV, radio, print, digital), major brands, agencies and political associations.

As the first touch for everyone interested in NewsWhip’s services, the ideal candidate will set the stage for all future successful client relationships for the company.

If you love news, social media, PR and marketing, you’ll interact with leaders in all of those roles worldwide, from large enterprise companies to individual bloggers. Our current customers include BuzzFeed, The BBC, The Guardian, MasterCard, Edelman, Wells Fargo, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post.

The right candidates will:

Have at least one year sales development, account management or telemarketing experience at a SaaS, social, news/media, or agency

Have a strong consultative selling approach including ability to listen to and absorb customer questions and problems

Have successful track record of meeting and exceeding target activities

Be patient and thorough when identifying, qualifying, and engaging suspects and prospects

Love talking to prospects by phone and engaging in online conversations

Be effective in using CRM and engagement tools

Thrive in an exciting, hands on, and collaborative startup environment

Be a news and social media junkie

Have good technical skills – be able to understand the basics of our technology after our training program, and explain it to others

NewsWhip is a technology company that recognises the importance of our sales team. We will support you vigorously, and do everything we can to empower you.

Benefits: Competitive salary, with good base and no caps on what you can earn. Your OTE (On Target Earnings) will be 60% base and 40% commission. We expect you to make or greatly exceed your targets as our team has done to date.

Our generous ESOP may be made available after six months, depending on your performance. Health plan will be provided, as well as other benefits.

Interested? We’d love to explore a possible match. Please email (i) your resume and (ii) a summary of why you want this job and why you would be great at it to: salesjobs@newswhip.com

The Account Manager is a solutions-oriented inside sales role to demonstrate our platform to qualified leads, and to meet with, close, onboard, and service our clients. Your focus will be on Europe and the Middle East, where our customers already include the BBC, The Guardian, Expressen, Axel Springer Group, Nieuwsblad, and dozens of agencies, publications, TV and radio stations, and technology companies in over 20 countries.

The ideal candidate knows SaaS, digital media, content marketing and social. They will take time to understand our customers’ challenges and pain points, and show how NewsWhip can improve their business process and bottom line. With technology and support from our New York and Dublin teams, they will help transform our customers’ workflows and business practices.

The successful candidate will interact with cutting edge leaders in news, marketing and PR worldwide, ranging from large, enterprise companies to small blogs. Our current customers include BuzzFeed, The BBC, The Guardian, MasterCard, Edelman, Digitas, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post. Most interactions will be through shared screen, telephone and other communications, and you will also have regular face to face meetings.

If you love news, social media, PR and marketing, and are passionate about providing cutting-edge solutions in those areas, this role could be for you.

You will:

Manage the full sales process from qualified lead to after sales monitoring

Demonstrate our technology, through share screen, telephone, and in person

The right candidates will:

Have at least two years inside sales experience at a SaaS, Marketing, PR, Social, or Content company

Be a top performer, with a track record of outperforming peers by exceeding new business and revenue targets

Be intellectually curious – NewsWhip is building the future, and you’ll have an input

Have experience effectively using and reporting via CRM tools

Thrive in a collaborative startup environment

Be interested in news and social media

NewsWhip is a technology company that recognises the importance of our sales team. We will support you vigorously, and do everything we can to empower you.

We are growing fast and you will have the opportunity to shape product development through your feedback, and progress quickly up our growing ranks. You will be our first salesperson in Europe and will work closely with the sales team in New York, and your work will include travel to New York and to events and customers across Europe.

As we sell across Europe, any fluent second language will be an advantage.

Benefits: Competitive salary, with a strong base and no cap on what you can earn if you make the sales. Your OTE (On Target Earnings) will be 50% base and 50% commission. We expect you to make or greatly exceed your targets as our team has done to date.

We have a vibrant office on South William Street, where food, snacks, and coffee flow free. Our ESOP may be made available after six months, depending on your performance.

Interested? We’d love to explore a possible match. Please email (i) your resume and (ii) a summary of why you want this job and why you would be great at it to: salesjobs@newswhip.com

]]>Backed by Silicon Valley’s top VC firms (Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital and more) Percolata is a physical big data startup disrupting the retail operations and analytics space with technology that provides unprecedented insight into the retail sales funnel at physical locations. Our technology fuses data from multiple sensing modalities to provide retailers with the most comprehensive and accurate analytics in the industry.

Computer vision is a key technology for our product. We are seeking a highly qualified computer vision scientist to join our team. This position will require the individual to work with all aspects of the engineering team, helping to improve the accuracy of our computer vision component.

The marketing manager is responsible for providing marketing support for Percolata’s enterprise sales efforts, including creating and executing marketing programs and materials that create awareness, generate leads, strengthen relationships, and otherwise assist the sales team in closing business with identified agencies, brands and retailers across the country. This position will be based in Percolata’’s Palo Alto office.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with corporate marketing and enterprise sales leadership to create a targeted strategy and tactical plan
• Leverage corporate marketing resources (including design, content, events, branding, advertising, social media and public relations) into relevant executions for enterprise sales
• Implement national marketing programs for enterprise sales and develop channel-specific executions
• Assist sales in the development and execution of unique strategies that complement national tools and programs
• Work with sales to develop customer-specific marketing materials
• Act as the marketing resource for the enterprise sales team and a liaison …

• Developing and implementing a company-wide go-to-market plan, working with all departments to execute.

Do you want to disrupt retail? Curious, energetic, and ready to solve retail’s biggest headaches? Percolata is growing and we need people who think BIG!

Today, many retailers invest tons into trying to analyze their e-commerce when 93% of retail shopping is still done in the store. At Percolata, we bring that level of analysis offline where most sales happen with a level of accuracy and detail that’s never been seen before.

While we’re only a seed stage startup, we already have premier clients like UNIQLO, the most sought after investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Google, and leaders in the field on our board of advisors like the former Chief Data Scientist at Amazon. We’re changing the game and we want you to help!

Your primary responsibility will be to make our accounts grow and to make our customers thrive through daily engagement with Percolata:

– Development of long-term relationships with Retail executives

– An approach to customer management that focuses on quality and execution

Job Description:

As a startup entering the market with a product that didn’t previously exist, we need to be able to strategically find prospective customers and capture their interest creatively. As a Business Development Representative, you’ll own this sales/marketing hybrid role by generating a pipeline of prospective clients and leading our outbound messaging to engage with them.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent

6-12 months of phone experience

High energy level, motivation, and drive to succeed

Proven track record of excellent communication

Versatile enough to be a team player, but effective enough to be an individual contributor

Strong passion for selling and ability to communicate a product’s value

Superb research skills and experience carrying out an experiment from start to finish

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator proficiency (a plus)

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

– Play an integral role in new and existing business development

– Increase daily usage of the Percolata analytics through ongoing consultation with end-users

– Ensure seamless client on-boarding

– Grow key accounts through account penetration

– Up-sell and manage add-on services and analyses

– Define and own business plans for key accounts

– Define and own communication plans for key accounts

– Act as the key interface between key accounts, the Percolata team, and third parties

– Lead Generation

– Provide support for downstream sales process – proposal development and contract management

Backed by Silicon Valley’s top VC firms (Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital and more) Percolata is a physical big data startup disrupting the retail operations and analytics space with technology that provides unprecedented insight into the retail sales funnel at physical locations. Our technology fuses data from multiple sensing modalities to provide retailers with the most comprehensive and accurate analytics in the industry.

Percolata is seeking a dedicated individual to help design and create images to be used for the company’s visual materials and help strengthen our company’s image. The applicant must have an excellent eye for details and the ability to create clean and modern images. This individual must be able to take direction well and work collaboratively with a team.

Desired Qualifications:

Proficient in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator

Excellent written and communication skills

Experience with HTML and Dreamweaver

Self-motivated and good self-management skills

Please be prepared to submit your portfolio or samples of your work.

Marketing Internship

Backed by Silicon Valley’s top VC firms (Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital and more) Percolata is a physical big data startup disrupting the retail operations and analytics space with technology that provides unprecedented insight into the retail sales funnel at physical locations. Our technology fuses data from multiple sensing modalities to provide retailers with the most comprehensive and accurate analytics in the industry.

The internship will have a flexible start and end date. It will give the intern the opportunity to gain more experience in the marketing field. Ideal candidates take initiative and work well with a team. We are looking for passionate learners and creative thinkers.

We’re looking for a talented user experience designer to help us maintain our proprietary software and direct the design of new features and enhancements. This person should have a passion for usability, an eye for visual consistency, and a knack for reducing the complex to the bare essentials.

Responsibilities:

– Keep the interface beautiful and easy to use. Direct the visual appearance of all new features and enhancements on our software application

– Initiate, suggest, and spearhead major UI re-factorings for a more intuitive user-experience

– Design elegant solutions to complex workflows. Design things that people will talk about

– Act as the user-advocate during the development process, subjecting early-stage designs to usability testing or expert review, and offering implementation suggestions from a user-centered perspective

– Act as “go to” with in-depth knowledge of user interface best practices and standards. Use research-related services, theories and methods to support your recommendations

– Take the initiative in providing input and feedback in both departmental discussions and on issues relating to other departments

– Develop wireframes, behavioral specifications and personas

Desired Qualifications:

Undergraduate degree in Design, Communications, Marketing, Business or Advertising

]]>http://www.socialstarts.com/jobs/ux-designer-percolata/feed/0Do We Need to Work to Survive Anymore?http://www.socialstarts.com/socialstarts/do-we-need-to-work-to-survive-anymore/
http://www.socialstarts.com/socialstarts/do-we-need-to-work-to-survive-anymore/#commentsSat, 27 Jun 2015 04:27:47 +0000http://www.socialstarts.com/?p=991For thousands of years work has been synonymous with value in society. If you worked, you mattered. If you didn't, you were, literally a bum

]]>“Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” –Bob Dylan

With the ascension of the Internet of Things and the emergence of robotics and intelligent systems, we can now envision a future where the need for humans to work in order to survive is lower than at any point in history.

For thousands of years work has been synonymous with value in society. If you worked, you mattered. If you didn’t, you were, literally a bum. The more you worked, the better you were perceived to be in your own eyes and society’s. The greater the monetary value of your work, the more stuff you could acquire–houses, boats, cars –and the higher your status.

This is all rooted in our subsistence origins, where the capacity to feed yourself, your family, your tribe quite literally meant the difference between life and death and the extent of one’s goods (the word carries its own essential connotation) represented the separation from starvation.

Throughout history works has mattered, perhaps more than anything else.

Increasingly, in my view, however, it doesn’t now.

As machines and the network take over work, it will be possible to have a Gross National Product even if no humans do any labor. What will society look like when work and wealth are no longer laminated together?

Many commentators see this as a terrible development. This is Skynet, where the machines seize control and make us their slaves. Or it is Dystopia, where the few who own the machines own everything; the perfect oligarchy: obscene luxury at the summit, while the masses heave and starve. I can understand where this perspective comes from. Looking backward through all of human history, if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat.

But I don’t accept those dark visions.

Looking forward, I think we are actually seeing the very early stages of something deep and profoundly positive: the beginnings of a world where traditional work and social value are no longer linked.

Young adults today already view life more as an adventure, a personal exploration inter-connected with others, than a rat race of work and acquisition. They believe they will not starve, and so, focus their attention not on the ownership of things but on the accumulation of experiences that reflect their worldview or perceived purpose.

Every Uber driver or Millennial urban service worker I have talked with reflects that view. Contrary to what a lot of (mostly older) analysts claim, they don’t see themselves as exploited; they are making choices they see as valuable and appropriate for their lives. The part-time driving is a way to augment their art; the deliveries or task rabbiting give them time to study. The flexibility of temporary work gives them time to travel.

For these new workers, work no longer stands at the heart of the meaning of life. It is merely an expedient.

And that, I think, is just the beginning of the change we are about to experience. { Aldready, we are seeing the emergence of a worldwide “basic income” movement among Millennials. This is the notion that, as the machines take over work, every human should be guaranteed enough income to cover the essentials of life. This could take the form of government grants or crowdfunded campaigns or even radical sharing systems. In other words, if anyone could “borrow” an apartment whenever needed or a car whenever travel was required, the need to own and therefore buy things would go down radically and so would the need for traditional income. Trials of this concept have already been undertaken in Canada, India and most prominently Brazil, and there is an active movement in the U.S., as well. More dramatically, Millennials are also beginning to take a fresh look at the fundamental concept of economic growth. The idea that economies must grow, or die, has been with us for ages. But, given the radical new circumstances in the world, has this idea possibly run its course? Facing global warming and shrinking world resources, aren’t ideas like efficiency and reduction now more natural and valuable than growth, as a measure of society? Young adults seem to think so. They are aspiring not to live large, but to live small. Micro apartments. Mini-cars. Backyards turned into food plots rather than showpieces. Perhaps the economy that doesn’t grow, but that maintains a serene equilibrium, will come to be seen as the real exemplar of progress. GNP comes to stand for Gross National Purpose.

Social status and work are also beginning to diverge. In Portland my son and his partner have few of the markings of traditional status. Neither has a high-paying job. They don’t have many financial resources. They aren’t stars in any traditional sense. And yet they are leaders and celebrities of a new type in their community. They are both featured in an online soap opera created by a friend, staffed and produced with other friends, supported by a small arts grant, that appears on a local online arts channel. There isn’t any money in it; but that isn’t the goal. The goal is joy, and mutual regard and creating art to share with the community and generating delight. In other words, the time they spend on this video tale is more valuable to them than traditional work, and produces the kind of status in their only work could provided in the past.

I think we are beginning to see tiny early signs now of a post-work society emerging among young adults. It is a culture where character and comradeship matter more than consumption. Where purpose trumps career and work is merely a means to nominal economic sufficiency. Where inter-dependence and sharing are more important than ownership and individuals’ value will be derived, in Martin Luther King’s words “from the content of their characters.”

If work doesn’t define who we are in this new society, what will? What is the social currency of the future? To be frank, I don’t know. But I suspect it will have something to do with engendering sharing and producing velocity of connection in society. Even now, big companies like Uber and Airbnb produce huge value without owning the cars or rooms they create markets around. Future value down to the individual level may well come from how people generate those kinds of connections.

From my grey-headed perspective this shift feels quite profound and positive. Maybe, as machines take over work, humans can finally be freed to get in touch with our better selves.